Lt. Col. William “Skate” Parks, an Air Force F-16 pilot, earned the Silver Star for a perilous mission in the Middle East after deliberately entering one of the region’s most defended air-defense zones and remaining there for 15 minutes while enemy missiles rained down, Fox News reports. He accomplished this enormous feat while his fuel was dangerously low, topping off the mission with a high-risk, SEAD-focused flight that disrupted ballistic missile production facilities and protected fellow aircrews. The award ceremony took place at the Pentagon on November 26, with Parks recognized for his leadership as commander of the 480th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron during a 21-aircraft strike package on March 27.
During the operation, Parks also led a four-ship element assigned to SEAD, drawing hostile fire to clear a path for the rest of the force. The Air Force citation notes that his decision to place himself in the crosshairs of the enemy’s integrated air defenses was pivotal in crippling production facilities for ballistic missiles. As missiles and anti-aircraft fire surged around his formation, the pilots executed a sequence of aggressive high-G maneuvers and countermeasures for a quarter of an hour, maintaining formation integrity under extreme pressure.
Even after the volley subsided, the danger persisted. Parks remained deep in hostile territory with insufficient fuel, prompting rapid coordination of emergency refueling from two separate tankers. This move, the Air Force stated, likely prevented the loss of two aircraft and saved lives. In remarks accompanying the ceremony, Parks described the emotional arc—from a sense of isolation to relief as rescue assets closed in and ground control helped coordinate the recovery.
“The loneliness settles in … and then that transitioned very quickly to elation,” he said. As I got a little bit closer, the [command and control] agencies and the Air Force team started picking me up, and my requests of ‘Hey, I need help! We’re out of gas. I need tankers moved.’”
Parks also highlighted the personal significance of the moment, noting his family’s long aviation legacy spanning generations of service.
“It is incredible, and this means a lot,” he said. “The amount of aviation and everything that we have in our family, that’s what shaped me and helped mold me.”
The ceremony underscored the rarity of the Silver Star, with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach emphasizing that fewer than a hundred such awards have been earned in the Air Force era. Parks also received the Bronze Star Medal during the same event, which honored the broader eight-month deployment supporting counterterrorism and air-defense operations across the region. The squadron’s deployment logged a record number of aerial victories against drones and missiles, while Parks implemented cost-saving tactics—such as repurposing older missiles and reducing reliance on newer variants—that saved tens of millions of dollars and yielded the first AIM-9M air-to-air kill in three decades. His personal actions reportedly included defending against multiple surface-to-air missile engagements and helping secure the safety of his wingman and the mission as a whole.